PTAB

CBM2016-00051

TradeStation Group Inc v. Trading Technologies Intl Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Method and system for displaying market information
  • Brief Description: The ’374 patent discloses a graphical user interface for electronic trading of commodities. The interface displays market information, including bid and ask quantities, aligned with a static price axis, which allows a trader to initiate a trade order at a desired price with a single user action.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Patent Ineligibility Under §101 (Abstract Idea) - Claims 1-36

  • Evidence Relied Upon: Weiss (“After the Trade is Made” publication), Gutterman (Patent 5,297,031), TSE (“Futures/Option Purchasing System Trading Terminal Operation Guide”), Belden (WO 90/11571), and the Amazon one-click patent (Patent 5,960,411).
  • Core Argument for this Ground: Petitioner argued that claims 1-36 are patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §101 because they are directed to an abstract idea without adding an inventive concept, following the two-step framework from Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l.
    • Alice Step 1 (Abstract Idea): Petitioner asserted the claims are directed to the abstract, fundamental economic practice of making market trades based on displayed market information and user input. This concept is a long-standing human activity, evidenced by prior art pen-and-paper ledgers (Weiss) that plotted bids and asks along a vertical price axis. The claims, therefore, computerize a fundamental economic practice, which is a hallmark of an abstract idea. Petitioner contended that the problem solved by the patent—reducing the time to place a trade to avoid missing a price—is a business problem, not a technical one.
    • Alice Step 2 (Lack of Inventive Concept): Petitioner argued that the claims fail to add “significantly more” to the abstract idea. The claim elements, viewed individually and as an ordered combination, merely recite well-understood, routine, and conventional activities. Implementing the abstract idea on a generic "computing device" is insufficient to confer patentability. The core purported inventive feature—the "static price axis" where price levels do not change when the market moves—was argued to be a well-known concept, present in the prior art Weiss paper ledger and the electronic display of the Gutterman patent. Furthermore, the "single action" trade execution limitation was argued to be a conventional feature, taught by the prior art TSE trading interface and widely known through systems like Amazon's one-click ordering patent. The ordered combination of these conventional steps does not improve computer functionality but instead uses a computer only for its most basic functions of displaying data and accepting input.

Ground 2: Patent Ineligibility Under §101 (Non-Statutory Subject Matter) - Claim 36

  • Core Argument for this Ground: Petitioner argued that claim 36 is invalid under 35 U.S.C. §101 because it encompasses subject matter outside the four statutory classes of patentability (process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter). The argument hinged on the construction of the term "computer readable medium."
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, "medium" is not limited to non-transitory media. The term can be defined as "an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on." This construction would include transitory, propagating signals (e.g., signals transmitted through wires or air), which are not statutory subject matter under Federal Circuit precedent (In re Nuijten).
    • Key Aspects: Petitioner contended that the claim's additional language "having stored therein" does not limit the medium to being non-transitory, as information can be temporarily recorded on a transitory medium. Because the claim is broad enough to encompass non-statutory transitory signals per se, it is invalid under §101.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

Petitioner proposed the following constructions under the Broadest Reasonable Interpretation (BRI) standard for terms central to its invalidity arguments:

  • "Mapping, by the computing device, the plurality of sequential price levels to the plurality of graphical locations": Petitioner proposed this term includes creating a logical correlation between price levels and graphical locations on an axis, and is broad enough to include the act of displaying the price levels at screen positions corresponding to those correlations.
  • "Computer Readable Medium": Petitioner proposed the BRI is "an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on." This construction was foundational to Ground 2, as it is not limited to non-transitory media and thus encompasses non-statutory subject matter.
  • "Single Action": Citing the specification, Petitioner argued this term means "any action by a user within a short period of time, whether comprising one or more clicks." This construction, which includes a double-click, was used to argue that the single-action trade entry was a conventional feature shown in the prior art.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of a Covered Business Method (CBM) patent review and cancellation of claims 1-36 of the ’374 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §101.